Month: February 2011

Next week we will be receiving a rather large payment from a customer. Every fiber of my being wants to take every last penny and apply it to our regular monthly payments and other debt. It would feel SOOOO GOOD to knock out a good portion of debt and have that weight lifted.

But…. that would not be the responsible thing to do. Money Management 101 says that you should always pay yourself first. So even though i WANT to pay down a chunk of debt, i know that i NEED to set some of that money aside for an emergency. That would be the responsible adult thing to do.

So, before i even have that money in my hand, i went online today and scheduled an automatic transfer to my ING savings account for the day after i will deposit the large payment. I also set up very small automatic transfers on a weekly basis to my personal ING savings account. Now that i am pretty much caught up on monthly bills, I really need to focus on setting aside $$$ for the leaner times. $15/week goes to my E-fund account, and $10/week goes to Christmas account. This is not very much money, but it’s a start. I don’t want to take out too much and have to transfer it back. As Hubby’s receivables start coming in and our bills are stabile, I can increase the amount or start another sub account, like vacation or vehicle expenses.

In other news, Hubby and I had the baby talk again the other night. I told him that we both need to lose weight and save up some money, because it’s probably going to cost us a lot of money to try to get pregnant. Surprisingly, while I was at class the next evening, he hit the weight room with a couple buds. Sounds like this might finally be the year we start our family!!

As the journey continues to be financially smarter, I decided it was time to evaluate some numbers. The key to righting the ship is to increase income and reduce expenses, correct? We’ve had a few adjustments along the way and I thought it was high time to take a look and see how much of an impact it makes on a montly basis. So here goes:

Increase in income (just me):

Ass Coordinator – $45

MFR Runs – about $150

Decrease in expenses:

Health insurance co-pay – $148

Property Tax Escrow – $178

Cell Phones/Internet – $60

Cable – $20

Total monthly Impact: (drumroll please……………) $601

WHOA

That’s a lotta dough 🙂

*This doesn’t include the decrease in NSF and overdraft fees. On December’s bank statement I noticed that our bank added a section to include fees for the month and total fees for the year. Let’s just say i was astonished to see that we lost an average of $500/month on the aforementioned fees. That is a lot of dough. Gone. For nothing. It’s expensive to be broke. We have not had a single fee since that discovery.

That explains why I’ve been able to slowly get caught up on our monthly payments. The increase in income from hubby certainly helps too. But that money hasn’t really started to come in yet. It feels GREAT to be able to actually pay bills again!